Every film in the series follows the same formula: a group of people -- usually teenagers -- leave the scene of an accident that proves fatal for a large number of people, due specifically to a premonition seen by a person who is the reason that the group manages to escape. While this small group survives, they were actually meant to die in the accident; Death sees to it that the survivors end up being killed off in extremely elaborate (and gory) "accidents" as part of a "list" of victims (essentially turning the natural process of death into a supernatural "slasher"). Each film culminates in an attempt from the person who saw the premonition and another person (or two) from the group to "cheat" Death and break its cycle before it can be completed.

Contents

Alternate Universe: It's implied by both Alex and Clear in the first movie in the scene where they are sitting in a park that they're actually living in an alternate universe from our own; where Death is not a biological state of a creature, but a sentient force of nature that has a master plan that basically trolls every human being on the planet from birth- planning to kill every person in a specific way from the moment they are born.

Clear: "I've thought a lot about that somewhere, Alex. It exists, that place. Where my dad is still safe. Where he had a full pack of cigarettes that night and just kept driving. Where me and my mom and my dad are still together... and I have no idea about this life here. Where our friends are still in the sky... where everyone gets a second chance. "

Further implied in the opening titles of the second film when a man is shown on television explaining the plot of the first film as it if it were a common occurrence in their reality.

Anyone Can Die: Though, due to the nature of the series and the genre, this is to be expected.

Asshole Victim: This being a slasher franchise, this happens a lot. See below for specific examples.

The Bad Guy Wins: No matter what the characters do, Death will always claim them.

Balancing Death's Books: The driving force behind the films. People were supposed to die, but they cheated and got out of it. So now Death is going to get his revenge, by killing them off in excruciating and painful ways.

Chekhov's Gun: Flip-flopped - so many things get set up that it gets so convoluted, and then subverted when something comes straight out of the blue. In fact, long-time fans might start playing "count the way this room could kill you" with each new scene.

And the Colorado rocky mountain high, I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky.I'm on the Highway to Hell.There is someone... walking behind you... turn around, look at me.It's your final hour.Dust in the wind...

One of the main parts of the first film; nearly every death scene involved the song Rocky Mountain High by John Denver, someone who Alex realizes at the beginning of the film died in a plane crash.

Sadly not as played up in the other films, but noted a few times during Parts 3 and 5.

Downer Ending: Every movie save the second one ends with the protagonists dead or in danger of dying. The fourth movie goes a step further and elevates the whole series into a Shaggy Dog Story by suggesting the premonitions themselves are part of Death's design, and that all the victims in the series were meant to die outside of the major accidents. Part 5 continues this implication also in two ways: Molly never died at the bridge, she only dies at the end of the film, on Flight 180, which she would never have been on had Sam (the visionary) not survived both the major accidents AND the aftermath; and Nathan, after he switches lives (see below).

To make matters worse, the people that were saved in the theater will probably die as well, considering how those deaths started in the first place.

Not to mention that the last two survivors of the second movie are killed later. In a wood chipper, just to be particularly sadistic. This is revealed in a DVD extra, though some fans consider this non-canon (despite being supported by Word of God and a separate picture in part 3 that implies their deaths).

Part 5. Nathan finding out the guy he switched lives with would have had an aneurysm "any day now". Then he's nailed by a piece of Flight 180.

Every Car Is a Pinto: The explosion of the plane is a bit too spectacular, really. Not to mention the car crash at the beginning of the second movie, where every car blows up.

Subverted at the same time with Evan Lewis' original death in the same scene. He actually rams into a rig's gas tank, but his car doesn't explode; he remains trapped in the carriage of his car, screaming as he is burning to death.

Averted with the drive-through collision in film #3, probably because an explosion would've obscured the fan-blade-to-the-head manner of the resulting death.

In the car crash in the second movie, there is a Ford Pinto, driven by Nora and Tim.

Failed a Spot Check: A number of deaths in the series are by things you would think the person would notice. For example, Tod and Valerie's deaths in the first movie, Tod somehow fails to notice the blue water[1] that's practically flooding the bathroom by the time he slips, and Valerie doesn't notice the vodka practically gushing out of the crack in her mug?

Failsafe Failure: The majority of deaths in the series are assisted or directly caused by electric and mechanical systems failing to a ridiculous degree. Computers will start fires, ceiling fans will not support their own weight, and if that's not enough, wait until any modern construction is placed under stress (an explosion, a large number of people, being activated in the first place, etc.). Death must have killed off all the actual engineers a while ago.

Lampshaded in part 5.

"There were five fail safe measures that all had to fail for that machine to do what it did. Five."

Fan Service: Subverted in the third film with the tanning bed scene. Yes, that scene.

Subverted again in the fourth film with the milf who was victim to an Eye Scream.

Played straight in part 2 with the biker who flashes Dano.

Played straight again in part 5 with Olivia.

"They're called tits."

Foreshadowing: Often happens about the deaths, for example, in the first movie, a skeleton figurine hanging in a noose is among the toys scattered about Tod's room. He is later strangled in his bathtub.

This film series and Expanded Universe is all about the foreshadowing. Anything can be a reference to how someone is going to die. Fans make it a game to try and find all the foreshadowing in later viewings.

The fourth film takes this to extremes. As if the commercials weren't bad enough Nick has brief images depicting how a character will die just moments before their death.

Also appears in Part 5. However, the characters don't ever seem to notice until it's too late.

A plot point in Part 3; photographs taken of the various characters show the way that they'll end up dying.

An important plot point in part 5 is that Sam wants to take an internship in Paris; it's a blatant clue that the film is a prequel and will end with Flight 180. Not to mention that the restaurant where Sam's internship was to take place is the same one Alex, Clear and Carter go to in Paris at the end of the first film.

For the Evulz: The only adequate explanation for why Death kills survivors so horribly. This is even offered as an explanation in the novelization of the third film, where Wendy also surmises that the reason why no one gets killed while alone is because Death likes having an audience.

Except for the dude who won the lottery in the second movie, he was alone when he got his face raped by the fire escape. And also Alex's friend Tod in the first movie, he was alone when he was hung in his shower.

Arguably played straight, if you believe the canon implication that it was all planned from the get-go (including the surviving surviving the mass mortalities and then "winning").

Gorn: Some of the fans seem to like the characters getting killed off a little too much. Then again, later sequels show that blood and guts seem to be the point of the series now. While this is true of Part 3 and 4, the gore level is toned down a bit in Part 5.

The Grim Reaper: The antagonist in both the films and books. Unusually, Death is presented as what can only be described as a "force" rather than as a person (although WMG has sprung up in relation to Tony Todd's character about this). "It" is usually seen as wind, though the other elements like to get in on the action too; generally speaking, water works to fake out the audience, sometimes teaming up with its old friend electricity, whilst wind, fire and earth lay the realDisaster Dominoes.

Hope Spot: Done several times to the survivors in the films. Notable examples:

In the 5th film, Olivia manages to get out of the head clutch of a malfunctioning LASIK machine as the main characters and doctors run in to help. Her eye is fried, but there is no apparent danger to her...but then she takes a step onto a glass eye of a teddy bear that she was holding during the procedure for comfort, that had been ripped off accidentally and fallen near a large window. She trips on it, and the rest is history.

The whole franchise, arguably, but film 4 gets special mention.

Idiot Ball: A lot of the deaths are set up by the characters walking into/under/through hazardous situations, not watching their backs, etc., which ruins the suspense a bit when the viewer knows a death is obviously coming.

I Lied: Death seems to like faking the survivors out right before their actual death scenes.

Carter in the original, Evan and Tim in the second, Ian and Lewis in the third, Andy in the fourth and Isaac in the fifth.

Infant Immortality: Averted (or implied to have been averted) in every film, except for the third one.

Final Destination: A crying child and a severely retarded man are on Flight 180.

Final Destination 2: Tim was going to be younger, but the filmmakers didn't think audiences would appreciate Death gruesomely stalking a kid.

Invincible Villain: The movies teeter back and forth as to whether the heroes can actually win, but this theme consistenly shows up in every entry. They're explicitly fighting Death, a presumably eternal force of nature. The fourth movie even indicates that Death gave them the visions in the first place, which means that every death happened according to his design, including the fates of the survivors - it just wasn't their time yet.

And, in a rare silent example, Death itself. The ol' Reaper sure likes to kill people in unneedingly funny, overly dramatic, and drawn out ways...

Made of Explodium: A lot of structures and vehicles seem to inexplicably explode. Sure there are accelerants often involved, but nowhere near the amount that would be needed to, say, blow up a house, or even an apartment.

Made of Plasticine: The higher the number of the sequel, the more this applies to the characters. Fans finally had enough when the fourth film had a character pushed through a fence by a flying gas canister and gets diced. The fifth film finally takes it back several notches.

Prophetic Fallacy: The opening premonitions, especially Kimberly's and Nick's series of secondary visions in the second and fourth films.

Psychic Dreams for Everyone: Clear gets some limited precognition throughout the first film (but not in the 2nd, strangely), despite not being involved with the first premonition. In addition, anyone can see signs if they pay attention, most notably Rory and Kat from the second film.

Reality Is Unrealistic: As the list of unusual deaths on the other wiki shows, people sometimes do die in incredibly bizarre circumstances, such as being killed by an airborne fire hydrant when a car struck the hydrant and the water pressure propelled it through another car's windshield. Some people even died in incredibly similar circumstances to the films, like decapitation by elevator or getting their insides sucked out by a pool drain.

To be fair, the person involved in the freak accident with the pool drain did survive several months, and it was a rare transplant-related cancer which eventually took her life.

Rube Goldberg Hates Your Guts: And it goes off without a hitch almost every single time. Justified in that it is planned by Death and he undoubtedly had quite a lot of practice in setting these things up.

Trainwreck Episode: Every story begins with a preminition of an elaborate disaster unfolding around the protagonists.

Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Many of the death scenes are partially based on actual events or have alluded to said events. However, they're played up and fictionalized for the film. In other words, they should rename 1000WaysToDie to Final Destination: The Series.

Voodoo Shark: If Death is giving the visions, as the fourth movie seems to indicate, then Death is spoiling Death's own plans, and having to fix those plans, when Death could simply not give the visions in the first place.

As it was stated earlier, maybe Death is just a sadistic bastard.

Or bored. One assumes he's been at this job for a while.

So Death is either an almost all-powerful moron who has no idea what its doing or is an asshole who enjoys saving people just so it can turn them into its playthings later on...

It's also possible the movie was trying to suggest that the survivors were meant to die in the accidents, not the original disasters, and Death was just getting them out of there so they could die in the proper place later. Of course, that means Death really, really went to great lengths to get his plan right in the second film, given all the survivors dodged death before due to the deaths of the first movie's survivors. Never mind the whole fracas over Kimberly's drowning visions.

Wild Mass Guessing: One of the more popular theories is that Death is sending the visions because its bored, and likes to see how long survivors can last, as it challenges itself to come up with increasingly convulted, horrific ways of trying to kill them.

You Can't Fight Fate: The premise of this film series. Even when the premonitions are avoided, most (and all in the long run) of the characters get their due death.

A subversion occurs in the comic books: The Reveal in the comic books is that the main character is the reincarnation of the goddess of fate, that she was used by death to enter our world, and wasn't supposed to die in the first place, which might explain how the protagonists of the movies get the premonitions in the first place.

Subverted in part five; while it's possible to do, apparently no one has ever been successful at it.

Abusive Parents: Clear's mother and stepfather, for the neglectful kind. They didn't even bother picking her up from the airport after Flight 180 exploded.

Asshole Victim: Carter, the openly and proudly insensitive prick of a boyfriend amongst the leads, with not one decent and good bone in his body.

He gets better by the end, though.

Bilingual Bonus: The doomed Flight 180 was run by Volée Airlines. Volée is French not only for 'flight' or 'flown', but also for 'stolen'. Highly appropriate given that Death's attempting to claim everyone's lives after the explosion. Also see Meaningful Name below.

Rasputinian Death: Ms. Lewton's death. She gets stabbed in the throat by shards of her exploding computer screen, knocked to the ground by an exploding Vodka bottle, stabbed in the chest by a large kitchen knife when she was trying to grab a cloth to stop her hemorrhage, but it takes a chair falling on her and hammering the knife deeper in her chest to kill her. And Death, not satisfied with that, blows up her house! It helps cement Death's position in the series as a sadistic bastard that loves making its victims suffer for shits and giggles. The last part also qualifies for There Is No Kill Like Overkill.

Significant Birth Date: Alex Browning, born on September 25, was scheduled to leave to paris at 9:25 PM. The plane, in which his seat was I25, of course, exploded on take off.

Title Drop: A tag an airport employee attaches to Alex's bag in the first film has "Final Destination" written on it in big, bold letters. The camera lingers on it for a few seconds.

Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The plane crash at the start of the first movie is obviously based on TWA 800 -- the plane is an old 747 flying from JFK to Paris that explodes shortly after takeoff. Some of the TV news footage in the movie is the real coverage of that disaster.

Bloody Hilarious: At the end, the two surviving characters are having a barbecue with a family they met earlier, when all of a sudden the mother mentions one of the victims having saved her son's life earlier in the film. As if on cue, the barbecue the son is checking on explodes, and his severed arm lands on the mom's plate. Roll credits.

Cigarette of Anxiety: Ket Jennings is a nervous workaholic who smokes even when on the treadmill. When she's stuck in her car due to some logs, she lights up a cigarillo as she's waiting to be rescued.

Dropped a Bridge on Him: Alex Browning, whose death was not only off screen, but the most unexciting death in the series. Admittedly, however, since the actor playing him had walked out between the first and second films over payment issues, they had no choice but to kill him off without showing it, since a death hadn't been filmed.

Dull Surprise: Kimberly didn't seem all that upset when Rory was sliced up by wires. Yet the random civilians around her were shouting or screaming "OH MY GOD!"

Earn Your Happy Ending: Kimberly has the honor of being the only protagonist to escape death's list -- by killing herself and getting revived at a nearby hospital...but then eventually subverted: the DVD extras for the third movie reveal that she and Officer Burke were sucked into a wood chipper between the two movies. The canonicity of that article is dubious, although it is supported by Word of God, and the third film does show a glimpse of them in a picture that implies that they died.

Alternatively, the vision that Isabella was going to survive in the first place could have been an in-universe retcon due to the fact that she cheated death by giving birth.

Revival Loophole: Standard example, where the visionary kills herself only to be revived, hence receiving a new life untainted by Death. A more ersatz one followed in part 5, where those remaining survivors are told they can kill another human being to save themselves, since they'd be taking their victim's life - utainted by Death - and giving them their death, Balancing Death's Books.

Scary Black Man: Eugene is a perfect subversion of this. The first time we see him, we don't get to see his skin color, but completely motorsuited up and speeding recklessly. The second time, he removes his helmet to show the big black man, complete with facial hair and bling. But once the movie gets beyond the first disaster, we never see Eugene with his bike again, and always with glasses and a sweater with stand-up collar. He is by far the most scared about his impending doom and freaks out about it quite badly.

Too Dumb to Live: Tim and Nora exit the dentists office, with Kimberly and Burke racing towards them, yelling at them to get away from the pigeons. Tim immediately sees a flock of pigeons, runs through them...and is crushed by a falling pane of glass. Really, people...the kid is 15 years old, and he's just had two near death experiences.

Blame it on bad re-writing: originally Tim was supposed to be much younger, but the director wanted to keep the deaths "fun" and decided that wasn't possible with a little kid.

Choose Your Own Adventure: The "Choose Their Fate" feature on the Thrill Ride Edition on DVD. Somewhat subverted however, as it was simply a more creative way to show deleted scenes from the film, even including an alternate ending.

Eye Scream: Erin gets nails shot through her face by a nail gun accident...several of them go through her eyes.

Final Girl: Wendy subverted though, as she appears to only survive about fifteen seconds longer than the other two friends killed in the subway crash.

Forklift Fu: A forklift goes haywire in the warehouse the leads are in, pushes over a shelf which almost sends dozens of pieces of fence wood into Ian, although Wendy manages to save him. However, it leads to Erin's death almost right after.

My Hair Came Out Pink: The novelization mentions why Frankie had shaved his head shortly before the events of the film. His attempt at dyeing it resulted in it turning pink.

No OSHA Compliance: Largely averted in the sequence in the hardware store. Ian and Erin do follow standard safety procedures for using a forklift and keeping the workplace tidy to prevent incidental mishaps, forcing Death to mess with the parking brake of the forklift to try to take them out.

Free Wheel: The first victim of Death's damage-control dies when a burning tire from the (unseen) mass pileup is flung clear out of the stadium and plummets down onto her in the parking lot, pulping a large part of her upper body from mid chest up.

Heroic Sacrifice: Nick pulls this in one of the alternate endings (although he could have thought it through some more). What makes it heroic is that he chooses to save everyone in the mall, not just the people he knows personally. Unfortunately, Death still gets Lori and Janet.

Mythology Gag: The falling tub death is completely identical to one of the deaths in the spin-off book End of the Line.

Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: After two numerical sequels, the fourth film is called The Final Destination, then the fifth one is just Final Destination 5. The Final Destination is, however, refferred to as Final Destination 4 at the end of part 5.

Only Known by Their Nickname: The main characters all have their names mentioned in the credits, but secondary ones (Carter, Samantha, Andy, Jonathan, etc.) are only referred to by nicknames (Racist, MILF, Gearhead, and Cowboy, respectively).

Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Suggests the premonitions are part of Death's design to begin with and that nobody ever had a chance of escaping.

Stupid Sacrifice: The original ending had Nick grab one of the flammable canisters in the mall, look around to see there were too many to remove...and jump out of the window with one to cause an explosion and set off an alarm. Wait, what? Why not just throw the canister out on its own? Doubly dumb due to the fact that Lori and Janet die moments later outside anyways.

After Sam has figured out the pattern and the protagonists are trying to figure out who's next.Dennis: "Who's what?"
(wrench is launched into Dennis's face)Sam: " Dennis! It was Dennis!"Nathan: "NO SHIT!"

Continuity Nod: There are so many of these including a photo of a character standing next to Car #6 from Part 4, a roller coaster photo from Devil's Flight from Part 3, a character working at Le Cafe Miro 81 from Part 1, a truck carrying wood just as the one from Part 2 when the bus is reaching the bridge, and of course the opening disaster from Part 1 ending the film.

The opening credits. To be specific; The credits features various objects that caused the deaths and disasters in the film series. Example a set of knives that killed Ms. Lewton's death in Part 1, the tire that decapitated Nadia from Part 4, the fire escape ladder from Part 2, pieces of the Devil's Flight derailment from Part 3 and so on...

Exact Words: The survivors are told that they can kill someone else to get taken off the list, getting the dead person's remaining years in exchange for the sacrifice. Now, if they only had a few weeks left to begin with...

Eye Scream: Final Destination 5 has a girl being burnt in the eye by a LASIK machine going haywire. Amazingly, she LIVES through that experience, only to slip on a plastic teddy bear eye, fall out a window, smash into a parked car, and have her GOOD eye pop out of her head. And that's run over by a passing vehicle.

Face Death with Dignity: Though he understandably remains a little on edge the whole time, Sam nevertheless decides that he's not going to go out of his way to avoid Death when the other survivors have clearly died in severely improbable locales. If he's going to die, it's unlikely any effort he takes to the contrary will help.

Frickin' Laser Beams: The LASIK machine shown above has a display that shows the power of the laser to be 5 milliwatts. In reality, a 5 mW laser has only the potential to damage the retina (and no other structure of the body) if a person stares into its beam long enough. In the movie, instead, it is depicted as being capable to burn the cornea, sclera and skin tissues instantly, it makes a classic zap sound and the beam it emits is visible and glowy. In addition, it is also the wrong type of laser: a continuous red beam, instead of the pulsed ultraviolet laser that is actually used in LASIK operations.

To be fair/honest, the laser's power wasn't capped at 5mW; there was just a warning sign for the laser to not be operated past 5mW, which the laser goes well beyond before doing its damage.

He Knows Too Much: Peter murders a federal agent, thus getting his life. Molly tries to get him to back down now that he's going to live, but Peter obviously can't leave a witness if he wants to spend his life anywhere but prison.

Nothing Is Scarier: The gymnastics scene is praised because of this. Other death scenes have the camera focus on many possible threats within the vicinity. In the gym? Nothing but bars secured on the floor. The whole time, the audience goes "What's going to happen to her? WHAT?" She is eventually done in by good old fashioned gravity.

Red Herring: During the setup of the Disaster Dominoes that will result in Candace's death, a lot of emphasis is placed upon a leaky pipe, particularly the puddle it creates and how it purposely stretches from a fan's exposed cable towards her bare feet as though stalking her, a series staple. Then she drops her towel on the water and later dies via other means alluded to earlier.

Let's be fair, for this series this trope is invoked nearly all the time - at the very least once (sometimes more) per film.

A rather brilliant inversion in 5 :The teddy bear Olivia is gripping as she is getting set up in the LASIK machine has an eye fall out, which foreshadows the inevitable Eye Scream to follow. However, the eye actually ends up causing her death.

Scary Black Man: Inverted with Nathan. He's a squirrely little dude who gets picked on by his employees.

Trailers Always Spoil: Subverted and played straight in Final Destination 5; some fans thought the trailers spoiled everything. For the most part, some of the implied deaths scene spoilers weren't the actual deaths. Except for Olivia's and Dennis'.

Wham Shot: At the end of the fifth film, Sam and Molly board a plane to Paris. Seems like a reference to the first film, right? When Sam puts his bags away, he hears a commotion behind him. He turns around, and we see Alex and Carter from the first film fighting and being thrown off the plane. That's right, the entire film was a prequel. Sam and Molly blow it off, and take their seats, sealingtheirfates.

Worst Aid: Isaac immediately pulling out one of the acupuncture needles after he's been impaled with them, which looks like it may very well have pierced his heart.

Xanatos Gambit: Death pulls one in Final Destination 5. Even though Molly was never supposed to die on the bridge, she was on Death's list for a Flight 180 victim. And even though Sam cheated Death by killing Peter (who killed Agent Block, thus taking Block's life) he ends up dying on the flight alongside her. This means that Sam took the life of a man who was already going to be put on a new list Death made. And to top all that off, Nathan also took the life of a man on Death's list. So either way, they were all screwed.